The AirScene™ system, developed by Rannoch Corporation of Alexandria Virginia, can track air traffic using multilateration and other techniques. Rannoch Corporation and its staff members have an extensive background in air traffic control, as well as noise operations and flight tracking, and thus has an understanding of not only how to detect and track aircraft and aircraft noise, but how to understand how and why aircraft noise is created and why aircraft follow particular tracks.
In order to try and understand the operations around an airport, the user must also understand what is happening at the airport. Simply looking at a real-time or recorded flight track and an associated noise event is only a part of the overall picture. While a Prior Art noise monitoring system might be able to tell the user how much noise is generated, and where, it may not tell the more important answer as to why the noise is generated and how it can be attenuated. Oftentimes various circumstances may create a scenario where noise is generated inadvertently.
The other major Noise Operations and Monitoring Systems (NOMS) on the market usually offer some form of flight tracking, correlation of noise event, and correlation with complaints. Most of the major NOMS systems, including AirScene™ allow some form of “gating” to automatically filter large numbers of flights where the user need only look at aircraft that exceeded certain parameters or transgressed certain boundaries.
For example, gating will automatically identify that an aircraft did not follow a standard instrument departure as it turned too early or the like. As the reader is likely aware these transgressions and exceedances occur many times on an ongoing basis at our nation's airports. The question is why?
For example, a user may wish to know why an aircraft turned 20 degrees west two miles earlier than the noise abatement procedure stated. Or why did the aircraft on approach to 27 Left go around two times before landing. Or why were northwest departures being used at night. Or why were cargo airlines using runway 24 between 4 and 6 am for departures. Any of these events may contribute to excessive noise. Without understanding a cause and effect relationship between these events and the noise created, it may be difficult to reduce noise around an airport.
Answers to these and many other similar questions are often based on a combination of many factors. Airport Operations may be an underlying cause of noise problems, as operations on the ground may force a pilot to alter his approach in a manner which may violate noise reduction edicts. Examples of airport operations parameters may include: Runways and types of approaches in use; Runway category of operation (Category I, II, III); Runway visual range (visibility on each runway); Airports operating in instrument of visual conditions (IFR/VFR operations); NOTAMS in effect (“notices to airmen”); Status of radar services at the airport and other nearby airports; Runways that are closed; Portions of taxiways that are closed; Construction crews working at the airport; Average runway occupancy time by aircraft type; and Average taxi time by aircraft type.
Another factor to consider is airport weather conditions. These conditions may include: Wind speed, directions, gusting; Wind shear alert; Visibility; Precipitation; Snow; Runway conditions, standing water, ice, and the like; Cloud ceiling; Temperature; and Dew point. Yet another factor to consider may include Air Traffic Control (ATC) Instructions. These instructions may include NOTAM instructions, Aircraft clearances, and Aircraft directions.
Another factor may include Aircraft Equipage, which may include: Aircraft approved category to land (Category I, II, III); Flight Management Systems (FMS); Aircraft Communications, Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS); Glass cockpit; Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS); and Head Up Display (HUD).
In the Prior Art, all of this data was not available. Correlating aircraft flight tracks, noise data, and other related aircraft, airport, and environmental data, would require difficult and time-consuming manual labor. Making the connection between conditions on the ground, for example, and a noise event may have proved difficult. Prior Art noise monitoring systems could do little other than determine which aircraft are in violation of noise rules—without determining the underlying causes of the noise violations.
What remains a requirement in the art, therefore, is a system which can acquire and store all types of aircraft, airport, and environmental data, as well as aircraft tracking and noise data, and allow a user to correlate or filter such data to discover trends between different data scenarios. And thus a requirement remains in the art for a system that not only tracks aircraft flight, departure, and arrival patterns, but also a system which can provide information as to why such patterns occur.